Briefly

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The police officer who survived a showdown with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects left the hospital Friday and headed home with a bullet still in his body, nearly two months after the gunbattle that severed one of his major arteries. Officer Richard Donohue walked out of Boston's Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital on crutches, emerging with his wife to the applause of more than a dozen fellow Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officers.

Donohue, 33, has been coping with nerve damage that can make it painful to walk, and will continue to do outpatient rehab.

The officer said he has no memory of the shootout in Watertown, Mass., between police and marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in the encounter.

Evacuations lifted for some near fire

Authorities lifted evacuations in a wide swath of terrain outside Colorado Springs on Friday as they said a surprise rain shower helped them expand containment of a wildfire that has destroyed 400 homes. Just one day after clearing out the Flying Horse neighborhood in northern Colorado Springs, officials allowed people back into at least 1,000 houses. They also reopened an eastern swath of the nearby Black Forest area in El Paso County.

An incident commander said the Black Forest fire – the most destructive in state history – was 30 percent contained, up from 5 percent on Thursday.

Recruiter gets

27 years in prison

An Air Force recruiter Friday was sentenced to 27 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault and other offenses. A panel of officers sentenced Tech Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Rodriguez faced up to life in prison.

Rodriguez previously pleaded guilty to 16 specifications from engaging in or attempting to engage in unprofessional relationships, to obstructing justice. He was also convicted of aggravated sexual assault, abusive sexual contact and non-forcible sodomy.

Hasan's defense plan is rejected

A uniformed Army psychiatrist had no justification for gunning down U.S. troops and won't be allowed to tell jurors that he was protecting Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, a military judge ruled Friday.

Maj. Nidal Hasan's “defense of others” strategy fails as a matter of law, Col. Tara Osborn said during a 45-minute hearing. That strategy must show that a killing was necessary to prevent the immediate harm or death of others.

Osborn said no soldiers at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, posed an imminent threat to anyone in Afghanistan and that the legitimacy of the Afghanistan war is not an issue at Hasan's court-martial.

Also,

One person was killed and several injured Friday in an explosion at a Louisiana chemical plant, authorities said, only miles from where another blast killed two plant workers Thursday. Friday evening's explosion came at a CF Industries facility in Donaldsonville. On Thursday, an explosion at chemical plant in Geismar owned by Williams Cos. Inc. killed two workers and injured dozens.

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